"Cambio!
Cambio!" The narrow canoes surround us like bees drawn to flowers.
The men in back paddle furiously across the swift current, while the
women hold up beaded necklaces between strokes, calling,
"Cambio!""Cambio!
Cambio!" The narrow canoes surround us like bees drawn to flowers.
The men in back paddle furiously across the swift current, while the
women hold up beaded necklaces between strokes, calling,
"Cambio!"
"Cambio" is Spanish for "exchange", and as our cruising guide explains, "Not trading is not an option." Like the homesteaders of the American west who paid itinerant tinkers for pans and nails with eggs and home-cooked meals, the Wareo are eager to barter what they have for what they need. As they approach, the women grasp their faded, torn dresses with one hand to show us the cloth. "Tela? Tela?" they ask.
Unfortunately I have no cloth ( I don't think they'd want our extra Sunbrella, and at over $12 a yard we're not about to trade it!) but they get excited about the spools of thread I bring out. One makes a scissors motion with her hand, and I nod and go below to fetch our extra pair of scissors. Meanwhile the men ask for "flanelas" -- t-shirts -- and baseball hats, and fish hooks. Some ask for books, by which they mean magazines, the more colorful the better. Women with children ask for toothpaste; few of the older Wareo have many teeth left. Most of them speak at least a little Spanish, but those who don't show us examples of what they want, or use sign language.
In
exchange, the men offer fish (which are perhaps piranha), and crudely
carved paddles and model boats complete with outboards. The women
have woven wicker baskets and necklaces made of plastic beads,
occasionally with small coins or animal teeth for decoration. To be
honest, we are not very excited about most of their trade goods, but
we play the game. When we really don't want anything they have, we
offer a small item -- an old National Geographic, say -- in exchange
for permission to take a photograph. Of course, when they don't want
what we have, which is often, they quiz us angrily on what else we
might possibly offer them before shaking their heads and pushing off
to go see if one of the other boats might have better stuff. The
women are the pickiest, and usually seem to have veto power over
their husbands.
We're caught by two conflicting feelings in our trading. The Wareo always try to get the most they possibly can in any transaction; for one necklace they might demand two t-shirts plus a tube of toothpaste and a felt-tip pen. Even after the deal is struck, they always ask for additional things. It's especially annoying when the item I'm trading for is not really that desirable. But on the other hand, these people have so little. They need these clothes, this thread, pens and paper for the classrooms, toothpaste to keep their kids' teeth clean. Sometimes we just want to give things out like Christmastime. But we hate to encourage the idea that yachties = presents; already, at some villages we've passed, the children have paddled over to us hoping for handouts. Some places we are pestered, uncomfortable, surrounded by a dozen canoes like a carcass eyed by vultures.
But then we pass a single small hut on stilts. A young girl of 14 or so paddles swiftly toward us, and we slow to allow her to pull alongside. Her necklaces, which she holds up silently, are made of oval seedpods which look like shells. I hold up a lacy peach-colored shirt I rarely wear, and she nods, so I place it on the side deck. Her eyes look a question at me, so I hold up a spool of thread. She nods again, and I add it to the pile. This, she decides, is sufficient; she shyly thrusts the necklace into my hands, gathers her new belongings, and with quiet smooth strokes, she paddles home.
